A new four-month-old daughter, a husband who plays guitar and a dad who can drive the bus. Crystal Shawanda is coming to Jasper, and she’s not alone.
“We’re bringing my little roadie,” the Nashville-based country artist said earlier this week. “She’s a natural!”
Zhaawande Naomi Rose Strobel, which means “first light of the new day,” has done well on a handful of short haul practice runs.
Shawanda hits the road this Saturday, starting with a show in Ontario, and heading west through the Prairies and Jasper to British Columbia, then back to Ontario for her yearly backyard homecoming concert, the 10th annual, in fact.
Coincidentally, Zhaawande might be how early you’ll have to line up outside the D’ed Dog at the Astoria Hotel to get into this free show.
Shawanda, who hails originally from Wikwemikong First Nation in Northern Ontario won the 2013 Juno for Best Aboriginal Album and has four other nominations, including one in 2017 for her latest album, Fish Out of Water.
The title is a reference to the album’s status as her first blues recording.
“It’s is a mixture of blues and soulful country,” she said. “For me, since we put out the blues album, I’ve kind of been on this journey of self-discovery. When I was singing country music, everybody said I sounded really bluesy. So we did the blues album, and a lot of people in the blues community said, ‘well, you can’t do that, you’re a country music artist.’ So I found myself stuck somewhere in the middle, which is where the title track came from.”
Shawanda said the experience harkened back to her entry to country music in the first place, which was marked by a record executive poo-pooing the idea of a Native American artist succeeding in that style.
“I’m used to being told no,” she laughed. “I just keep doing what I do. I feel this is what I was born to do, so I just keep marching along.”
“I remember this converastion I had with my mom. I felt like a fish out of water trying to fly. I didn’t know what direction to take with the album. She said, embrace it. Some people don’t fit in a box.
‘That’s what this album is, a declaration that I’m a little bit of everything.’
Promoter Rob Pattee, who booked acts for the Astoria in the 70s and 80s (his office was where the stage is today), was actually a bit surprised he was able to land Shawanda for a free gig in Jasper.
“This is usually a $30 cover,” he said. “If you haven’t heard this woman sing, the chance to in an intimate setting like the old Astoria is too good to pass up.”
The show starts at 8:30 p.m.
Craig Gilbert | [email protected]
